{"id":8382,"date":"2015-08-07T12:32:39","date_gmt":"2015-08-07T16:32:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/?p=8382"},"modified":"2015-08-07T12:32:39","modified_gmt":"2015-08-07T16:32:39","slug":"mit-built-its-own-ellen-pao-before-the-ivy-league-did-gretchen-kalonji","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2015\/08\/07\/mit-built-its-own-ellen-pao-before-the-ivy-league-did-gretchen-kalonji\/","title":{"rendered":"MIT built its own Ellen Pao before the Ivy League did: Gretchen Kalonji"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Can you think of anyone with top academic credentials who\u00a0got fired from a job for underperformance,\u00a0sued\u00a0to get paid for having XX chromosomes, and who was tied to the world of nonstandard sexuality?<\/p>\n<p>No, not <a href=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2015\/03\/28\/ellen-pao-v-kleiner-perkins-wrap-up\/\">Ellen Pao<\/a> of Princeton and Harvard, Kleiner Perkins\/Reddit, and (at least formerly) gay men.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/pub\/gretchen-kalonji\/0\/21b\/39a\">Gretchen Kalonji<\/a>, a 1980 graduate from the MIT materials science department, eventually became a professor at MIT. She was denied tenure in 1988, analogous to Ellen Pao&#8217;s failure to be promoted to senior partner at Kleiner. Kalonji sued MIT, eventually settling in 1995 for &#8220;an undisclosed amount&#8221; plus &#8220;MIT also agreed to spend at least $50,000 a year for 5 years on a national program encouraging women and minority grad students and postdocs to move onto university faculties.&#8221; (<a href=\"http:\/\/sciencecareers.sciencemag.org\/career_magazine\/previous_issues\/articles\/1999_11_12\/nodoi.2404097675680151592\">sciencemag.org<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>Kalonji moved west and ended up\u00a0in a same-sex\u00a0relationship with <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Denice_Denton\">Denice Denton<\/a>, the chancellor of University of California Santa Cruz. Denton was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.santacruzsentinel.com\/general-news\/20090717\/lawsuit-seeking-part-of-denton-estate-settles\">described<\/a> as &#8220;admired for overcoming gender and sexual-orientation biases and for taking a practical approach to social justice issues&#8221; and &#8220;ensnared in an investigation into unreported pay and perks in the UC system and was criticized after $600,000 in renovations were made to her university home.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Denton arranged a $192,000\/year\u00a0job for Kalonji as the University of California&#8217;s &#8220;director of international strategy development&#8221; (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfgate.com\/education\/article\/SAN-FRANCISCO-UC-hires-partner-of-chancellor-2704138.php\">sfgate<\/a>;\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/intelligence-summit.blogspot.com\/2005\/09\/ivory-cower-university-presidents-have.html\">WSJ<\/a>) . Denton subsequently committed suicide, leaving an estate worth perhaps\u00a0$2 million. Kalonji then sued the estate for more than\u00a0100 percent of this value\u00a0(argument: (1) if it had been legal for two women to be married then Denton would have married her; (2) had they in fact been married, Denton would have updated her will and left everything to Kalonji instead of to Denton&#8217;s blood relatives). (<em><a href=\"http:\/\/newsgroups.derkeiler.com\/Archive\/Alt\/alt.true-crime\/2008-07\/msg02620.html\">Santa Cruz Sentinel<\/a><\/em>) Kalonji ultimately settled this lawsuit in exchange for roughly $750,000 in real estate (<em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.santacruzsentinel.com\/general-news\/20090717\/lawsuit-seeking-part-of-denton-estate-settles\">Santa Cruz Sentinel<\/a><\/em>).<\/p>\n<p>What do readers think? The <em>New York Times<\/em> gives all credit to Ellen Pao and, implicitly, Princeton and Harvard. But it would seem that an MIT graduate blazed the trail&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Can you think of anyone with top academic credentials who\u00a0got fired from a job for underperformance,\u00a0sued\u00a0to get paid for having XX chromosomes, and who was tied to the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>MIT built its own Ellen Pao before the Ivy League did: Gretchen Kalonji - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2015\/08\/07\/mit-built-its-own-ellen-pao-before-the-ivy-league-did-gretchen-kalonji\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"MIT built its own Ellen Pao before the Ivy League did: Gretchen Kalonji - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Can you think of anyone with top academic credentials who\u00a0got fired from a job for underperformance,\u00a0sued\u00a0to get paid for having XX chromosomes, and who was tied to the [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2015\/08\/07\/mit-built-its-own-ellen-pao-before-the-ivy-league-did-gretchen-kalonji\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-08-07T16:32:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"philg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"philg\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2015\/08\/07\/mit-built-its-own-ellen-pao-before-the-ivy-league-did-gretchen-kalonji\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2015\/08\/07\/mit-built-its-own-ellen-pao-before-the-ivy-league-did-gretchen-kalonji\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"philg\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/448e4e6a0ae9105741a06dcf62cee50e\"},\"headline\":\"MIT built its own Ellen Pao before the Ivy League did: Gretchen Kalonji\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-08-07T16:32:39+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2015\/08\/07\/mit-built-its-own-ellen-pao-before-the-ivy-league-did-gretchen-kalonji\/\"},\"wordCount\":338,\"commentCount\":4,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/448e4e6a0ae9105741a06dcf62cee50e\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2015\/08\/07\/mit-built-its-own-ellen-pao-before-the-ivy-league-did-gretchen-kalonji\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2015\/08\/07\/mit-built-its-own-ellen-pao-before-the-ivy-league-did-gretchen-kalonji\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2015\/08\/07\/mit-built-its-own-ellen-pao-before-the-ivy-league-did-gretchen-kalonji\/\",\"name\":\"MIT built its own Ellen Pao before the Ivy League did: Gretchen Kalonji - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2015-08-07T16:32:39+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2015\/08\/07\/mit-built-its-own-ellen-pao-before-the-ivy-league-did-gretchen-kalonji\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2015\/08\/07\/mit-built-its-own-ellen-pao-before-the-ivy-league-did-gretchen-kalonji\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2015\/08\/07\/mit-built-its-own-ellen-pao-before-the-ivy-league-did-gretchen-kalonji\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"MIT built its own Ellen Pao before the Ivy League did: Gretchen Kalonji\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog\",\"description\":\"A posting every day; an interesting idea every three months...\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/448e4e6a0ae9105741a06dcf62cee50e\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":[\"Person\",\"Organization\"],\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/448e4e6a0ae9105741a06dcf62cee50e\",\"name\":\"philg\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20210525-philip-greenspun-sea-turtle-release-scaled.jpg\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20210525-philip-greenspun-sea-turtle-release-scaled.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20210525-philip-greenspun-sea-turtle-release-scaled.jpg\",\"width\":2047,\"height\":2560,\"caption\":\"philg\"},\"logo\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20210525-philip-greenspun-sea-turtle-release-scaled.jpg\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/author\/philg\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"MIT built its own Ellen Pao before the Ivy League did: Gretchen Kalonji - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2015\/08\/07\/mit-built-its-own-ellen-pao-before-the-ivy-league-did-gretchen-kalonji\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"MIT built its own Ellen Pao before the Ivy League did: Gretchen Kalonji - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog","og_description":"Can you think of anyone with top academic credentials who\u00a0got fired from a job for underperformance,\u00a0sued\u00a0to get paid for having XX chromosomes, and who was tied to the [&hellip;]","og_url":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2015\/08\/07\/mit-built-its-own-ellen-pao-before-the-ivy-league-did-gretchen-kalonji\/","og_site_name":"Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog","article_published_time":"2015-08-07T16:32:39+00:00","author":"philg","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"philg","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2015\/08\/07\/mit-built-its-own-ellen-pao-before-the-ivy-league-did-gretchen-kalonji\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2015\/08\/07\/mit-built-its-own-ellen-pao-before-the-ivy-league-did-gretchen-kalonji\/"},"author":{"name":"philg","@id":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/448e4e6a0ae9105741a06dcf62cee50e"},"headline":"MIT built its own Ellen Pao before the Ivy League did: Gretchen Kalonji","datePublished":"2015-08-07T16:32:39+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2015\/08\/07\/mit-built-its-own-ellen-pao-before-the-ivy-league-did-gretchen-kalonji\/"},"wordCount":338,"commentCount":4,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/448e4e6a0ae9105741a06dcf62cee50e"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2015\/08\/07\/mit-built-its-own-ellen-pao-before-the-ivy-league-did-gretchen-kalonji\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2015\/08\/07\/mit-built-its-own-ellen-pao-before-the-ivy-league-did-gretchen-kalonji\/","url":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2015\/08\/07\/mit-built-its-own-ellen-pao-before-the-ivy-league-did-gretchen-kalonji\/","name":"MIT built its own Ellen Pao before the Ivy League did: Gretchen Kalonji - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2015-08-07T16:32:39+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2015\/08\/07\/mit-built-its-own-ellen-pao-before-the-ivy-league-did-gretchen-kalonji\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2015\/08\/07\/mit-built-its-own-ellen-pao-before-the-ivy-league-did-gretchen-kalonji\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2015\/08\/07\/mit-built-its-own-ellen-pao-before-the-ivy-league-did-gretchen-kalonji\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"MIT built its own Ellen Pao before the Ivy League did: Gretchen Kalonji"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/","name":"Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog","description":"A posting every day; an interesting idea every three months...","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/448e4e6a0ae9105741a06dcf62cee50e"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":["Person","Organization"],"@id":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/448e4e6a0ae9105741a06dcf62cee50e","name":"philg","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20210525-philip-greenspun-sea-turtle-release-scaled.jpg","url":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20210525-philip-greenspun-sea-turtle-release-scaled.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20210525-philip-greenspun-sea-turtle-release-scaled.jpg","width":2047,"height":2560,"caption":"philg"},"logo":{"@id":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20210525-philip-greenspun-sea-turtle-release-scaled.jpg"},"url":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/author\/philg\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paokyZ-2bc","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8382\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}